Call Us: 1 (800) 368-8070

Posts Tagged ‘SEO Strategy’

Now that 2013 has almost ended, it’s time to kick your professional resolutions into high gear. We don’t know what will come in 2014 but today we share a few goals that will keep you ahead of the pack. (For some personal goals that pack a big professional impact, check out this month’s newsletter.)

Find and tell your corporate story: One of the hottest PR topics this year has been content marketing, and that’s not expected to change in 2014. Effective content marketing requires a savvy strategy, and part of executing that strategy is telling your corporate story. Not only should all content reflect your organization’s brand values and voice, but it should also have universal appeal that also supports business growth.

How do you find your corporation’s story? It’s not really about the organization itself, it’s about using a certain platform to relate to your audience. Use resources to dig a bit deeper into the company’s history, its mission statement, and its values. Use those values and stories as pivot points to engage with your community and spread ideals and positive, consistent messaging.

Say “No” to GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. Your end product is inherently tied to what you put into the project, especially your time, your energy, your content. GIGO isn’t a solution; it’s usually a last resort or a byproduct of time or money spread too thin. GIGO comes with a lot of pitfalls, like incomplete data, misleading results, poor performance, unmet goals, and having to go back and fix or re-do work you’ve already done. Assessing where your GIGO is and deciding how to fix it can be a huge upfront investment of time and resources, but it ultimately pays off in greater, long-lasting rewards. We’ll be talking a lot more about getting rid of GIGO in 2014, but for now check out this newsletter and our Seussian poem on GIGO.

Keep your goals SMART: Setting SMART goals keeps you focused and give you direction, as well as ensuring that the goal you’re setting is both measurable and achievable. SMART goals must be: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. So no matter what you’re plotting – content market strategy, sales goals, or social media tactics – remember that SMART goals are achievable goals.

Keep your social media consistent: We know that in a digital, instantaneous world, updating consistently and often is paramount to staying relevant. But it’s also important to keep your organization’s digital voice consistent to maximize your brand’s impact and recognition. If more than one person runs or has access to your organization’s social media accounts, bring them together for an early 2014 meeting to refine the corporate voice and get everyone on the same page.

Similarly, ensure that someone’s consistently monitoring those social media accounts to check for comments or mentions and respond to any questions, shout-outs, or complaints. Users expect a response from a brand within an hour, especially if it’s regarding a complaint, so stay connected, and don’t forget to engage, even with a simple “Thanks for the RT.”

Think about SEO in a whole new way: SEO isn’t about keywords anymore, it’s all about semantics. Google’s Hummingbird update is changing the way the search engine displays search results. Now, it’s about content quality, not just keyword quantity and link building. Build your new SEO strategy along with your content marketing strategy, as the two will now go hand in hand. And don’t neglect Google Plus – while this seems like it should be part of a social media strategy rather than an SEO strategy, Google Plus will become integral in search engine rankings. Check out our post on integrating Google Plus into your SEO strategy for more tips.

With the introduction of Hummingbird, Google’s latest semantic search algorithm, and the changing landscape of SEO and content marketing, Google Plus has become crucial to SEO success. Here are the hows and whys of integrating Google Plus into your content marketing and SEO strategies.

How Google Plus and SEO correlate

That Google Plus is a Google product is not the only reason it helps pages rank highly in Google’s search results; it’s also because Google Plus is “the unification of all of Google’s services, with a common social layer,” explained Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering at Google.

Optimize your Google Plus profile

The first step –after setting up a Google Plus account, of course – is to optimize your profile. Your meta description is what shows up in search results, and it’s only the first 160 characters of your organization’s name, tagline, location, and then the description. That’s not much space for a lot of information, and all that information should contain keywords targeted to what you do.

Put your most important keywords as close to the beginning as possible to ensure they show up in search results.

Fill up the links section

Completing the links section of your profile is absolutely necessary, and there are three sections for links. The first is “Other Profiles,” which should feature no-follow links to your other social media accounts. The “Contributor to” section is necessary for completing Google Authorship, so provide no-follow links to the blog you contribute to (this would be your company blog and any other industry blogs your company contributes to). Finally, provide do-follow links in the “Links” section, which should link to your organization’s blog, homepage, and any other company resources.

Set up Google Authorship

If you’re a regular contributor to online content anywhere, using Google Authorship can help boost your search rankings. Google Authorship verifies the identity of the author, and identity verification may be important in future Google algorithms. Establishing Authorship doesn’t just benefit individual authors or influencers; by encouraging regular, or even occasional, contributors to your company blog to set up Google Authorship linking to the company content, you raise your organization’s profile and the profile of those who work at your organization. Check out a complete guide to Google Authorship to get set up.

Post on Google Plus

Once you’ve set up your profile, make sure to create and share posts on Google Plus. Unlike tweets and Facebook posts, Google Plus posts are crawled and indexed. Plus, posting increases your chances of having that post shared. You don’t need to pursue +1’s per se, as +1’s don’t increase your search ranking, but by getting +1’s, it means your post is probably getting shared and linked to, establishing your credibility and increasing links back to you.

What’s your Google Plus strategy? Have you found that using Google Plus has enhanced your SEO and/or search engine rankings?